In Front, Japan’s Opposition Senses a Chance to Govern

Hokuto Yokoyama, left, a candidate for Japans Parliament, with a supporter this month at his campaign office in Aomori.Credit
Yuli Weeks for The New York Times

AOMORI, Japan — Hokuto Yokoyama has run for political office four times, and lost four times, as an opposition candidate in this mountainous region known for its abundant apples, and its equally abundant loyalty to the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which has governed Japan almost continuously for more than a half-century.

But with national parliamentary elections less than a week away, he is finding himself in a new and unfamiliar position: as the acknowledged front-runner in his district. At a recent rally, he seemed so flustered by the thousands of listeners that he held the microphone too close to his face, hiding it from view. The crowd loved him anyway, and even laughed at his jokes.

It is a similar story across Japan, where the long-marginalized opposition seems about to get its chance to govern. Opinion polls show the main opposition Democratic Party heading to a landslide victory in Sunday’s parliamentary elections over the badly stumbling Liberal Democrats.

Democratic candidates like Mr. Yokoyama seem to be surprised — even caught a bit off guard — by their sudden popularity. They are benefiting from voter frustration with years of political paralysis and economic decline, followed by Japan’s hard fall in the financial crisis, which seem to have convinced voters even here in Japan’s risk-averse heartland that it is time for change.

“There has been a sudden upwelling of discontent toward where the Liberal Democrats have taken Japan,” said Mr. Yokoyama, 45, a dour-faced university professor. “We have to take advantage of this chance.”

Voters in Aomori, on the far northern tip of Japan’s main island, Honshu, say they feel betrayed by the market-oriented reforms of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, which many here blame for allowing economically depressed rural communities, with their graying populations, to fall behind more vibrant cities like Tokyo.

The Democrats have tried to seize the moment with promises to expand Japan’s social safety net, to offer farmers income subsidies and to stop waste by reining in Tokyo’s powerful bureaucracy. But even Democratic candidates like Mr. Yokoyama admit that they are being embraced less for their policies than for the simple fact that voters want somebody — anybody — other than the incumbents.

“We are just sick of the Liberal Democratic Party,” said Junji Matsumoto, a rice farmer in the district where Mr. Yokoyama is running. “We did everything the party and the bureaucrats told us to do, and now look at the fix we’re in.”

Mr. Matsumoto, 52, said an influx of cheaper imported food had driven down the annual income from his 20-acre farm by a third since the early 1990s, to about $40,000. Rural Japan’s rapid aging is also evident here; his village, Yomogita, seems to be disappearing as graying residents dwindle in number.

Photo

In the past, the Aomori region of Japan has been loyal to the Liberal Democratic Party.Credit
The New York Times

The feeling of decline has persuaded the village’s chapter of the national agricultural cooperative to do what was once unthinkable here, and support Mr. Yokoyama instead of the Liberal Democratic candidate.

“The difference in this election is that we actually have a choice,” Mr. Matsumoto said.

The Liberal Democrats have helped speed their own demise by appearing exhausted and disorganized. In Aomori, the local party branch has backed Jun Tsushima, a first-time candidate whose father just retired after 33 years as a Liberal Democratic lawmaker. This has pitted the local branch against the national party headquarters, which withheld support for Mr. Tsushima because of public anger over too many second- and third-generation lawmakers.

Aomori Prefecture offers a microcosm of the rural distress that the Democrats are hoping to tap. The average annual income of $24,000 is just half of Tokyo’s, while the 7.9 percent unemployment rate is nearly twice as high, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. A quarter of Aomori’s population is over age 65, two percentage points above Japan’s already high national average, the ministry said.

This has created a deep frustration among the normally reserved residents. On a recent weekday afternoon, feelings bubbled to the surface when the Democratic Party chief, Yukio Hatoyama, joined Mr. Yokoyama during a campaign stop in the city of Aomori, the prefecture’s capital, where some 3,000 mostly graying heads gathered to listen.

“We need to topple Japan’s feudal lords,” said one listener, a 61-year-old woman, referring to the incumbent Liberal Democrats. She and several co-workers declined to give their names because, they said, they worked for the city police department, which has backed the governing party for as long as they can remember.

Sadao Tanabu, a top official of the Democratic Party’s chapter for the prefecture, said he had never seen such an outpouring of support in his 26-year career in the political opposition. He called it a big turnaround from just a few years ago, when he still had to convince residents that the Democratic Party was not “a bunch of socialist revolutionaries.”

“For 60 years, the Japanese opposition was the cat that couldn’t catch rats,” said Mr. Tanabu, 63, who entered politics as an activist for the local electric utility company’s union. “People have only known Liberal Democratic government their entire lives.”

Democrats said the clearest sign that the tide was turning was the defections by traditional Liberal Democratic supporters, including the Aomori city doctors’ association, farmers’ groups and industries like trucking, which now back Mr. Yokoyama.

“Many of these groups wouldn’t even talk to me in previous elections,” Mr. Yokoyama said. “Now, they all want me to listen to them.”

Sitting in his sparsely furnished campaign headquarters, Mr. Yokoyama recounted how he lost the last two lower-house races, as well as both his bids to become governor of the prefecture. He did join the lower house after the last election in 2005 under a system by which parties are allotted seats based on a percentage of voter support.

How did he feel about possibly winning his first victory in an election race? “I don’t want to say anything that would bring me bad luck,” he answered, allowing himself a rare smile. “I keep having this bad dream that something will happen, and I’ll find myself unable to win again.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: In Front, Japan’s Opposition Senses a Chance to Govern. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe